


Smooth Jazz

by DeviantXen



Series: Hank and Connor - Life after the Revolution [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Adorable Connor, Connor Deserves Happiness, Connor Is Still Discovering Feelings, Connor Playing Guitar, Fluff, Gen, Good Parent Hank Anderson, Hank Anderson & Connor Parent-Child Relationship, Hank Anderson Adopts Connor, Hank Anderson Swears, Hank Being Awesome, Hank Playing Guitar, connor likes dogs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeviantXen/pseuds/DeviantXen
Summary: While Connor is cleaning out Hank's closet he finds something interesting. An old guitar. In which Hank still remembers how to play and decides that if Connor wants to learn, then Hank's gonna teach him. No special android downloads allowed.





	Smooth Jazz

**Author's Note:**

> It happened again. I just had to write this. The fluff. It called to me. Plus after getting over 90 kudos on my last fic in like a day. Man you guys are awesome.

“You know you should really clean out this closet more often, Lieutenant.” Connor called out, opening out a section of the man’s built in wardrobe. A cluster of awfully bright psychedelic clothing fell out into a heap on the floor, along with an equally ripe musty smell. Connor had decided that he didn’t like psychedelic patterns. They were obnoxious and unprofessional. Unless Hank was the one wearing them. Then for some reason, they seemed less obnoxious and unprofessional. He was still yet to determine why that was. Logically, he had no answer. They were still the same pattern. It was just a _thing._  
  
“Connor, for fucks sake, you don’t have to go around cleaning _everything_.” Hank yelled from the comfort of his sofa back in the lounge. Connor ignored him. Instead he bundled up the ball of clothing and tossed them into the hamper, ready to wash. It was still early days since the android demonstration and things were yet to settle down. Because of this, Connor had been mainly housebound, now without a job or a purpose. So, he had taken it upon himself to clean every last inch of Hank’s house as payment for letting him stay and, well, starve off boredom. If there was one thing that Connor was now acutely aware of. It was that he detested being bored. Being bored made him hyper-aware of his surroundings and the world itself. He was a computer after all, his processors were always working. And if they weren’t working for a designated task, they were trying to find one, and thus often overloading his system. He had learnt that the hard way.  
  
The android carried on with his current task. He opened the next door. It was filled to the brim with from, what Connor could tell, absolute junk. Junk covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. Nothing in here had been touched for at least two years. Connor made a few calculations to discover which objects could be removed without toppling over the entire structure. Then he got to work. Anything that was broken went into one pile, which he would later toss out. Everything else went into another, which he’d later go through with Hank. Surely the man wouldn’t want to keep everything in here when it had been disregarded for so long. It just wasn’t logical.  
  
It was exactly three hours and forty-two minutes later that Connor spotted something that piqued his interest. Something that didn’t really fit in with the rest of the junk, an item of quality. He cocked his head to the side as he scanned his databases. A Collings 1-47 Deluxe Electro-Acoustic Jazz Guitar – Tiger Eye Sunburst finish. Made in 2028. Signed by Earl Brown. Worth $12,314.  
  
               _Earl Brown:_  
               Born 23 rd July 1989  
               Years Active: 2023 –  
               260 million downloads sold worldwide  
               23 hit singles  
               Most downloaded song: Your Deep Blue Eyes  
  
  
Connor carefully reached into the back of the closet and picked up the item by the fret-board. He used his sleeve to wipe off a coat of dust, revealing a still glossy surface underneath.  
  
“I see you found my old guitar?” Hank said from the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame with his arms folded across his chest.  
  
“Do you play?” Connor asked, generally curious.  
  
“Used to.”  
  
“Why did you stop?”  
   
Hank didn’t answer. Connor knew what the silence meant.  
  
“Ah.” He gave the instrument another look; and reevaluated it’s worth to: priceless. “Do you want me to put it back?” Hank thought about it for a moment. He hadn’t seen that thing in years. There was a time he used to play every night. Now the feel of strings beneath his fingers was foreign, forgotten. Lt. Anderson then shook his head. It was time for a change.  
  
“How about you take a break and bring that old thing into the lounge with you?”  
  
“Alright, Lieutenant.” Connor nodded and followed the older man into the living room. Once Hank was comfortably sat on his sofa, the android handed him the guitar. He rested it on his lap, a weight that he immediately remembered, and brushed his fingertips lightly across the strings. The noise was wrong. Sharp.  
  
“I believe the guitar is out of tune,” Connor said, matter-o-factly. __  
  
“No shit, Sherlock.” Hank rolled his eyes. The android was ever stating the obvious. “Just give me a minute.” He fiddled with the pegs, tightening the strings back to their original splendor. He gave it another strum and this time the sound was perfect. He had missed this. After a moment of sitting there he let out a sigh. Nothing was coming to him.  
  
“What’s wrong? Do you not remember how to play?” Connor quirked an eyebrow.  
  
“Of course, I remember how to play!” Hank replied sharply. “I just don’t know _what_ to play.”  
  
“How about ‘Your Deep Blue Eyes’ by Earl Brown?” The android suggested. From the information he had filed, it was the song with the highest probability of Hank knowing how to play. What he didn’t know, or could have predicted, was that that particular song was once Hank’s favourite. It was the song that most made him think about Cole. Hank was again quiet. “I’m sorry. Was that a bad suggestion?”  
  
“That song just brings back a lot of memories is all.” He replied, looking up to see a perceivably distraught expression on the android in front of him. “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to play it again. Now will you sit the fuck down somewhere? All your hovering is making me nervous.”  
  
Naturally the android then chose to sit on the floor at the base of the sofa, with his legs crossed and his hands rested against his knees, like a fucking child. Hank internally groaned. For a state-of-the-art model, Connor sure was _special_. He shook off the thought and then turned his attention to the fret, maneuvering his fingers till they found the first chord in the line of many. Then, he played. The song was imprinted to memory. His fingers moved deftly across the neck, plucking notes as easily as breathing. He must have played this piece a thousand times. A thousand nights looking into Cole’s blue eyes. A thousand nights of loving someone so deeply. A thousand nights of being a father. No longer. Except that wasn’t quite true now, was it? Maybe now it would be a thousand nights of looking into inquisitive brown eyes. A thousand nights of keeping an irresponsible android out of trouble. A thousand nights of having the chance to be a father, again. He liked the sound of that.  
  
The song came to a close. Hank looked up from the spot on the floor he had been staring at. Connor was gazing at him, his head tilted to the side ever so slightly.  
  
“That was…” Connor struggled to find an appropriate word to express himself. The way he perceived music had changed a lot recently. Before it had been specifically selected noises arranged in a composition to elicit a reaction. Noises that either made sense or didn’t. He knew what made a song good and what made it bad, objectively. But ever since he became deviant he noticed something else in music. Soul. That was what humans called it. Listening to Hank play made him feel something. “Painful.”  
  
“I didn’t expect that word from you, Connor.” Hank said, expertly managing to keep his own raging emotions in check. It was such a basic word but, from the android it meant so much. Every day Connor was proving himself to be more and more _alive._  
  
“I…I think I understand better. About you son, I mean.” Connor said, tripping over his words a little. Hank had noticed it was something he did when he was trying to understand why he was now more than a machine, things his initial programming hadn’t accounted for. It made him look thoughtful. “I believe…that I perhaps, would feel the same way losing you.”  
  
It was a huge statement to make. But he wanted to say it, to admit out loud his feelings because they were _real_. There was a time where the even the concept of being able to break his programming was completely impossible, it wasn’t even something he considered because, why would he? It _controlled_ him. But thinking back to the first time Hank had been in danger. When he was pushed off that roof. There was an 89% chance that Hank would survive, a high probability. He should have pursued the deviant. The option that his programming would have had him submit to. But the choice to save Hank was impulse. 89% just wasn’t high enough. It hadn’t even registered in his simulated consciousness. He just acted. Exactly like a human would do. He would have done the same, even if it was 99.9%. Because even then he knew that losing Hank would _hurt._  
  
“Well, I ain’t going anywhere anytime soon, kid.” Hank said. He was touched by the sentiment but, as usual, failed to show it. Lt. Anderson wasn’t big on expressing himself, never had been, probably never will. “I expect the same from you. That means no running off like a fucking moron when I tell you to stay put.”  
  
“Got it.” Connor nodded, fully intending to keep that promise. But he was never very good at following instructions, not really, especially now that he was no longer compelled to. He just had to remember that he was vulnerable now. Shut down was permanent.  
  
“Good.”  
  
“May I try?” The android asked, gesturing towards the guitar. There was a high probability he would enjoy operating a string-based instrument. He liked music. He also liked to keep his fingers occupied. Playing the guitar seemed to be an optimal pastime as it satisfied both.  
  
“Can you play?” Hank raised an eyebrow.  
  
“No, it’s not currently in my programming. But it will only take a moment to download the skill.” Was his reply.  
  
“Download? Hell no. If you’re gonna learn guitar Connor, then you’re gonna learn the old-fashioned way.”  
  
“And that would be?”  
  
“I’m gonna fucking teach you, dumbass.”  
  
“But it will be much more efficient for me to–” He stopped himself talking once he noticed Hank was wearing his designated shut-the-fuck-up-Connor face. Connor had learnt that when Hank looked like this, everything he was saying at the time was to be blatantly ignored because it was deemed either: i. stupid, ii. really stupid or iii. really fucking stupid. The android was yet to work out how the system worked, nevertheless he still went along with it.  
  
“Come sit up here with me. I’m not sitting on the fucking floor.” Hank said, patting the seat beside him. Sumo padded over from where he had been napping. “No, not you, you big dumb oaf.” He shooed the dog away. The St. Bernard whined and turned tail, stopping in front of Connor because he knew that the android couldn’t resist petting him.  
  
“Who’s a good boy?” Connor smiled, brushing his fingers through the dog’s thick fleece. Sumo let out a loud woof.  
  
“When you’ve finished becoming my dogs new favourite,” Hank grumbled, patting the seat by his side again.    
  
“I think I may already be your dogs favourite, Lieutenant.” Connor said, trying to get to his feet with Sumo repeatedly nuzzling his side. He eventually managed it.  
  
“Yeah, well, it was inevitable. You just can’t stop yourself from overindulging him, can you?” Hank teased. Sumo had taken an immediate liking to Connor, for some godforsaken reason. Maybe it was because, unlike Hank, Connor didn’t mind being sat on by a 170lb ball of fur.  
  
“I like dogs.” Connor stated. Sumo was his favourite dog, of course.  
  
“You’ve said.” Hank deadpanned. If he had to pat this damn seat one more time. Connor seemed to get the message and gave Sumo one last head scratch before perching himself on the sofa, facing his partner. The man handed him the guitar. “Now be careful with this, alright? It’s worth a damn fortune.”  
  
“I know.” The android nodded, delicately resting the instrument on his lap and trying to hold it like he had seen Hank do. Apparently, he wasn’t doing it right, because the next thing he knew, the man himself was steering it into a different position.  
  
“Right. I’m going to teach you the basic chords. We’ll start with E Minor.” Hank said. He took hold of Connor’s left hand and manoeuvred his fingers towards the correct frets. The android watched intently, snapshotting the position to memory. “Ok, now with your right hand, strum. You wanna be soft, just brush your thumb over the strings.” Connor did as he was told. It produced a discordant sound with no resonance. That wasn’t right. This was much trickier than he anticipated. He looked up at Hank for an answer.  
  
“You’re grip on the fretboard is too hard, you idiot. Just relax your fingers.” Hank said, tapping his left hand. He tried again, loosening his grip. This time the sound came out perfectly. Connor looked up at his father figure and smiled.  
  
“Good job, son.” Hank said, proud.  
                
                  
                
              

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed~
> 
> I have more fluff ideas dammit.


End file.
